missing teens. It’s weird to see them. But even weirder to see people she knows and sees every day, standing so solemnly, all dressed up. She sees Nico’s and Tiffany’s extended families up front, the camera invading their grief.
She sees her own parents, looking older than what she thinks them to be. She sees the Greenwoods and the Shanks arriving with some of the other people of Cryer’s Cross, and she’s struck by how horribly often the little town has had to gather all at once like this over the past five months, stopping everything for another tragedy, then trudging onward with life.
The caskets hang suspended over the graves in plot sections that have no patriarchs, no matriarchs.
Teenagers aren’t supposed to die. Kendall pulls an extra pillow to her chest and hugs it, wondering why on earth she convinced her mother to go to the memorial and leave her here alone during this.
She sees Hector and the Obregons. Marlena in a black dress, Jacian in a dark suit with a white shirt, no tie. They find seats, and Jacian jiggles his foot up and down as they wait for it to begin. And finally it does.
A few minutes into it, the TV news anchor cuts in and brings breaking news of something else, a fire downtown or something, and the service is gone. Kendall turns off the TV and stares at the ceiling, remembering Nico in her own private way. His smile, the light in his eyes. How he’d do anything for her, and she for him.
She thinks about their romance, how it came as a by-product, an experiment in their friendship. Their parents always talked about them being together forever. It was just a given as they grew up.
She thinks about how she never really felt comfortable calling him her boyfriend until after he was gone.
He was in love with her, she knew. But she just loved him. It wasn’t the same. He was such a good person that she knew she should be in love with him. Who wouldn’t? But there was no passion. It was sweet, she realizes now, and that’s all it was. She thinks about what was special with them. How kissing him wasn’t all that important. But loyalty? Loyalty was everything.
The tears stream down her face for the goodness that Nico was. For the memories she will never forget. For all the times he stood up for her, the only girl in their class, and for all the times she beat him honestly, at soccer or tests or a footrace down to the river. She cries for all the people he won’t get to help, for the diploma he’ll never earn, for his parents and family, who will never be the same again. For the hole in her heart left by the loss of a best friend.
And then she cries for the way he died. She knows what he went through, and she can only hope he was so under the influence of the possessed souls in the desk that he didn’t know what horror he was doing to himself. She wonders whose voice he heard. Maybe it was Tiffany’s. He’d be the guy to want to save someone in trouble, there’s no doubt about that. She’ll never know the answer to that one.
It was the OCD that saved her. She knows that. And as much as she hates how it rules and ruins her everyday life, she vows that she will never complain about it again.
She’s sitting up in a chair, showered and slightly exhausted from the effort, but still wishing she could just bust out of the hospital — when the phone rings. She shuffles over to it and answers, her voice still husky but no longer sore from all the beatings it took.
“Hello,” she says.
“Hey.”
Her stomach twists. “Hey. . How are you?”
It’s quiet on the line, and for a minute Kendall thinks Jacian might have hung up. But then he speaks.
“I’m fine. I’m. . I just wondered if you were doing okay. Is this a bad time?”
“No. I mean, yes, I’m doing okay. No, it’s not a bad time.” She sits down on the edge of the bed. “I saw you on TV, at the memorial service. . ”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, it wasn’t on for long before they cut to the next tragedy, though. You looked nice.”
“Thanks. Look, Kendall?” he sounds anxious.
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry to bother you. I know this is a tough time for you, with Nico and all, and you probably don’t want to see me. But I’ve just been thinking about you. . God. All the time. Do you mind if I come up to your room?”
Kendall blinks. “Where are you?”
“In the lobby.” He sounds miserable.
Kendall’s stomach drops to the floor. She swallows hard. “I look. . pretty terrible. Bruises, scratches.
. I guess you’ve seen that already, though.”
“If you don’t want me to come up, that’s cool. It was just an impulsive thing. I went for a drive after the service and ended up here. I can go.”
“No! I mean, please. Come up. I was just, you know, warning you. I’m in four sixteen.”
There is silence. An intake of breath. And then, “I’m on the way.”
Kendall hangs up the phone. She dashes to the bathroom and checks her hair, shakes it in front of her face to try to hide the scratches, but it only makes her look worse, so she smoothes it back again. She slips into her robe. A moment later she hears a soft knock on the door.
She takes a deep breath and opens it.
He walks in.
Stands there hesitantly for a minute, still wearing his suit from the memorial service, shirt untucked, black hair disheveled from the wind. He takes her in from toe to head. His eyes land on hers and stay there. And he says softly, “You don’t look terrible.”
Her stomach flips over, scares her.
He goes to her, opens his arms, and she wraps hers around his neck, feels the chill of the evening on his jacket.
They hold each other gently, thoughts rushing through their minds, memories of when he found her.
She buries her face in his neck. “Thank you for saving my life,” she says. “That was really scary.” From nowhere and everywhere, the sobs come.
He runs his hand over her hair and swallows hard. “You did it yourself,” he says. “I don’t know how you did that. How you did what Tiffany and Nico couldn’t do. But you saved yourself,” he murmurs. “You did it.
All you.”
“I would have frozen to death out there without you.”
He holds her tighter. “I’m so sorry,” he whispers. He presses his lips to her hair.
Everything inside her body melts.
She is chocolate in his fist.
We scream but the noise is lost. No listeners remain. A sliver of Us is gone, trapped, dormant inside the life. Ancient heat hovers at the edges of Our face, manhandling Us, bumping and shoving, away, away. Perhaps now We will find heat, life anew. We settle. And once again, We wait.
She’s nervous her first day going back to school. She waits by the cold window, fogging it up with her breath, until she sees the truck. Then she kisses her mother and father good-bye. They wave and go back to their newspapers and coffee — a small reward, a luxury for another harvest completed.
Jacian pushes the door open for her from the inside, and she hops in. He turns the truck around and takes off down the driveway.
“Where’s Marlena?”
“She’s been hitching a ride with Eli the past few days. They hung out after the memorial service, and I think maybe they’ve got a little thing going.” He glances sidelong at her.
She grins. “How cool! Eli’s a sweet guy. That’s perfect.”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. Little things are overrated if you ask me.”
“I see.”
“Yeah, it’s sort of all or nothing with me. Yep.”
Kendall’s eyes narrow. “I’m feeling an urge to smack you again.”
“Ooh,” he says. He slows the truck.
